What began as a 'typical Sunday' in Irishtown ended with the tragic discovery of a newborn baby's body, writes Patsy McGarry.
It was "a most distressing case", remarked the Dublin City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell. He could see that people in the court were distressed by it. Earlier he had asked Det Sgt Colm O'Malley of Irishtown Garda station in the city "is that Dublin 4?" Det Sgt O'Malley confirmed it was.
There had been confusion earlier as to whether the baby girl's body was found in Sandymount or Irishtown, but it was clarified as Irishtown and that the area where she was found is known as the Irishtown Nature Park.
For Mr Brendan Reilly, from Ringsend, it was "a typical Sunday in that area".
He was cycling there from Seán Moore Park when he was stopped by a man who said he had found the body of a baby.
The man, who he now knew as Mr Albert Marshall, asked had he a mobile, and when he said he had, he asked him to ring the Garda. He rang 999.
He waited until the gardaí arrived. He saw the baby in a yellow bag. She had black hair and "her little hands were up to her face". He noted the only person to touch her that afternoon was a garda. He touched her hand.
Mr Marshall was a regular swimmer at the spot. He was there with his dog that day. He noticed the sports bag first as he walked in the water in his bare feet. It was wedged between rocks.
Mr Marshall felt some other swimmer had left it behind and, as the water was rising, he lifted it up to a higher level and went for his swim. The sports bag was still there when he got back.
'He was curious. He opened it, and saw two stones and another bag within. He left it for a while. Then he turned the stones out and left it again, for a few more minutes. He cut the plastic bag with a piece of glass he had found nearby.
All he could see were towels. One towel opened slightly. "I could see two little hands. I knew it was a baby," he said. He saw a man cycling by and called out to him.
In her report, Dr Marie Cassidy recalled the baby had been in "a yellow plastic charity collection bag". That was inside a Total Sport Actif grey and black sports bag, recalled Garda Ian Redican. With two rocks.
Dr Cassidy wondered whether the infant had been washed by the sea, she was so clean. She was a full-term female infant with no evidence of trauma on her body.
Dr Conall Hooper, the Garda doctor, noted the child had "a long length of untied umbilical cord attached". Dr Cassidy said the umbilical appeared to have been cleanly cut. There were no injury marks but she had breathed after birth.
The City Coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, told the jury it was not clear when the baby died.
"She may have died a day or two before" but the date of death was given as July 14th, 2002, as it was the day on which her death was officially pronounced.
Formally it was a case of unlawful death, but he suggested a verdict of "death due to want of attention at birth", he told the jury.
"No words of mine can do justice to this case," he remarked.
Asked by a male jury member as to possible alternative verdicts, Dr Farrell said: "I think (a verdict of) infanticide speaks of more active involvement."
He suggested that in this case it was most likely a matter of "death by passivity" which was "qualitatively different from infanticide". It was a case of death due to "a lack of care and sustenance", he suggested.
The jury conferred briefly in situ, and returned a verdict in line with Dr Farrell's suggestion.
